Sébastien Gallice : “It’s a great curiosity that arises about new concepts”
Sébastien Gallice is the president of the Pharmaciens des Préparatoires de France (PREF) and a pharmacist in one of the largest pharmacies in France, located in Marseille. He graciously agreed to answer our questions to shed light on his stance regarding 3D printing of medications.
To start, could you tell us more about yourself ?
Sébastien GALLICE – I’m Sébastien Gallice, the pharmacist in charge of the Rosiers Pharmacy in Marseille. It’s a somewhat special pharmacy because we produce a lot of magistral preparations, meaning customized medications. Additionally, I’m the president of PREF, a scientific society aimed at promoting and developing the proper use of these magistral preparations.
Let’s focus on your role as a pharmacist. What might be a typical day like in a pharmacy like yours ?
Sébastien GALLICE – Let’s talk specifically about the compounding aspect. It starts with assessing the requests from my colleagues who entrust us with their magistral preparations. We check if we have the capacity to fulfill all the requests, if we have all the necessary molecules, and if we’ve released all the required batches. It’s also about ensuring that the entire team is present because any shortage might cause production delays. This is how a typical day begins. Throughout the day, we monitor any urgent matters or our production status. We check if we’re up to date or behind schedule, and if the release of these preparations is going smoothly, meaning if the finished products meet our expectations. We have regular meetings with my assistant pharmacists to discuss these points.
Tell us about magistral preparations in the pharmacy.
Sébastien GALLICE – Human involvement is the primary factor in the production of these magistral preparations. Whether it’s inputting the prescription we’ve been entrusted with, converting it into a digital recipe, establishing traceability around it, or assigning it to other preparers who, through their expertise, manually manufacture these medications, whether they’re capsules, syrups, suppositories, ointments… We have an entire process tailored to this.
This interview is taking place thanks to your visit to MB Therapeutics with the aim of meeting other developers. What are your ambitions regarding their technology ?
Sébastien GALLICE – For me, this is a first, it’s a great curiosity that arises about new concepts. Today, we work, as mentioned earlier, manually, and will tomorrow’s technology assist us? What can we expect from 3D printing of medications? So, we are here to discuss and see what is being offered, what would be beneficial for us, and perhaps consider progressing together.
Do you have any examples of potential benefits that 3D printing of medications could offer ?
Sébastien GALLICE – I’ll give a very simple example. We are limited in our compounding pharmacies in terms of the types of formulations we can produce. The team at MB Therapeutics has proposed dispersible pediatric formulations to me. I find that fantastic. In terms of production quality, there’s hardly anything to criticize; we adhere to almost the same standards. However, providing an additional and very important advantage for mothers, grandparents who have specific treatments for their children, I think that’s an extraordinary asset. That’s the first point.
The second major point, in my opinion, is that we must protect all of our employees, and we’re increasingly handling very complex products, commonly referred to as hazardous, carcinogenic, mutagenic, or reprotoxic. If these 3D printing technologies allow us to shield ourselves from exposure to these dangerous raw materials, it’s also a huge step forward for the safety of our compounding pharmacies.
There are added values for both staff and patients.
Sébastien GALLICE – Exactly, and that’s ultimately what we’re looking for. It’s not just about personal added value; it’s really about what I bring to the patients. Besides ensuring dosage safety, I might also provide highly tailored formulations.
And from a personal point of view, how do you see the future of 3D printing of medications in the context of the preparations you mentioned earlier ?
Sébastien GALLICE – I believe it’s a very important new tool, as we’ve discussed, with two things that seem major to me. Undoubtedly, the protection of personnel is a significant plus. The creation of highly specific formulations that we’re currently unable to produce in our compounding pharmacies, such as dispersible formulations. Additionally, the government has established its roadmap for managing drug shortages today. It’s important not to forget that in the past 10 years, we’ve seen a tenfold increase in drug shortages, from 400 to 4000, nearly 5000. Could these 3D printing technologies help us facilitate this public health bridge that compounding pharmacies currently manage? For example, in the absence of amoxicillin, we produced 7 million capsules, over 100,000 treatments per month at the peak. Could 3D printing help us become even more efficient?”
You believe in the future of this technology ?
Sébastien GALLICE – Absolutely, I have great faith in it. I believe it will help us progress even further and potentially open up even more therapeutic options and adjustment schemes. We might discuss, for instance, the tapering off of anxiolytics. There are significant needs in this area. If we can support clinicians in therapeutic trials and then establish dose de-escalation protocols, that could be very important.
To wrap up, you mention clinicians and other pharmacists. Do you have any advice for them ?
Sébastien GALLICE – I would advise them to remain curious and to advance both themselves and the technology in these new opportunities.
